The government’s sneaky attack on FOI has to stop

The WI is being sacrificed to save Cabinet Office blushes

Published at 12:01AM, January 14 2016

Few people could have realised when it was passed just how profound the Freedom of Information Act would be. For the first time, the public had a legal right to demand information from their public services rather than accept what they were given.

This was a major shift of power in favour of the citizen. Over the past 15 years, it has proved a powerful tool to uncover facts about poor practice in health and other public services, senior pay levels and expenses, and the unseen actions of government.

The justification for this move is that charities receive taxpayers’ money in some shape or form, either to provide services or to fix the church roof. Charity leaders welcome transparency and support the public’s right to know how their money is spent; and on the face of it, this proposal would appear to strengthen that right.

Yet dig a little deeper and it is evident that this measure would actually undermine FoI. It is, in truth, a rather crude tactic to divert attention from the central issue. The rationale behind the review of FoI currently taking place is to protect the sanctity of the adviser-politician relationship and the impartiality of advice that civil servants may offer.

Newspapers, broadcasters and campaigners for open government are understandably suspicious. In September 2015, over 140 media organisations wrote to David Cameron urging him to abandon suggested reforms. A petition organised by the 38 Degrees group calling for FoI to be protected has gathered almost 200,000 signatures.

The concern is that the review is in reality an attempt to dilute FoI and so spare the Government from scrutiny. And one is compelled to view the proposal to extend FoI to voluntary organisations in this context – as a strong-arming measure to defuse the criticism of the real dilution of openness that is threatened by this review.

FOI costs in central and local government, and the NHS

Only 6 per cent of all government expenditure with independent organisations makes its way to the charitable sector. Most of the rest goes to large companies and higher education institutions. Not only would this extension of FoI to the charity sector be minuscule, therefore, it would also be capricious.

Charities are already regulated by the Charity Commission. Do they need more rules? Do we really want our charity leaders and our volunteers spending their time fielding all manner of FoI requests, let alone having to appoint the staff to do it? How useful is it for my local vicar to face demands that she answers requests for information on the consumption of communion wine or the people who run my cricket club to disclose how much beer was consumed at their annual dinner?

"This proposed measure is a blunderbuss that would do nothing for transparency but ultimately harm good causes"

Charities are told by government we should ensure as much of our resources go to the front line as possible. Recently in this newspaper, Rob Wilson, the civil society minister, was exhorting us to “eke out every last penny for good causes”. How is that consistent with having to divert resources to cope with new regulations under FoI. Moreover, why should what little public money goes to these organisations be spent in this way?

Other reasons used to justify this measure do not bear scrutiny. Take, for example, the suggestion that it would help prevent calamities like the collapse and closure of Kids Company. This is disingenuous. The information about Kids Co’s mismanagement was publicly available by way of its accounts. Concerns were raised years before its final collapse, including by civil servants (and were already available under FoI). So this was not a case of a lack of public information, but of government getting it wrong.

Using this example as evidence is to try to play down government culpability rather than learn the lessons of the collapse in terms of the historic underfunding of charity leadership and governance. How ironic it would be, then, if changes to FoI made it impossible to find out about civil service advice in cases like this yet at the same time require children’s charities to divert resources from the front line.

The Government needs to work with charities and commercial organisations to get this right. We have alternatives. One idea is for voluntary and commercial organisations that take contracts for services from public bodies to subscribe to a voluntary code on information release.

As charities we could discuss with the Charity Commission how best to make data available on the use of public funds. This would recognise the importance of the principles behind FoI while at the same time being sensitive to the extent to which the burden of red tape weighs heavily on voluntary bodies.

This proposed measure is a blunderbuss that would do nothing for transparency but ultimately harm good causes.

Double Standards On New Freedom Of Information Laws

Tuesday, January 12th, 2016 By

The government wants to impose limits on Freedom of Information (FoI) requests to Whitehall departments and state agencies, but proposes extending the Act to charities – all 165,290 of them. Many of these charities are led by volunteers. Meanwhile private companies which supply public services will remain exempt.

Responding to the news Peter Holbrook, Chief Executive of Social Enterprise UK, said: “Whether the Freedom of Information Act should be extended to charities is important, but risks overshadowing the bigger issue in this critical debate, which is that private companies are not necessarily going to be covered by the new FOI laws. Taxpayers spend close to £200 billion every year on goods and services with third party providers, the majority of which goes to private companies. These firms are already difficult to hold to account and often operate with little transparency.

“Extending the Freedom of Information Act to include charities and social enterprises is perfectly reasonable where they receive substantial sums of money from the taxpayers’ purse to deliver crucial services. But private companies delivering public services must also be open to the same rules and regulations. In the last Parliament, the Government committed to this. A U-turn now would be a grave mistake – multi-billion pound private companies must not be allowed to quietly slip under the radar whilst smaller charities and social enterprises, which reinvest their profits and operate for the greater good are singled out.

“These multi-billion pound companies deliver a range of public services, including for some of society’s most vulnerable people, and they really do need to be accountable to the government, commissioners and taxpayers. This issue needs a greater airing in the public domain – charities and social enterprises must not be a distraction from the much bigger and more serious issue facing commissioners and citizens.”

Protect Freedom of Information (FOI) laws

To The Government

Petition Text

Protect our Freedom of Information laws, that give people the right to hold our decision makers to account.

Why is this important?

The government wants to restrict Freedom of Information laws - that help citizens expose dodgy lobbyists, poor government decisions and threats to public safety. They're desperate to water down our right to hold them to account. While only a few of us may have ever made a request using Freedom of Information laws - they have the power to affect us all.

It was a ‘Freedom of Information’ (FOI) request that exposed the MPs’ expenses scandal. And it was another FOI request which exposed that a third of NHS contracts were being handed out to private companies. FOI requests are critical for many of the campaigns that improve our society.

Newspapers and several Conservative MPs have already spoken out against the plans. A huge people-powered petition - signed by hundreds of thousands of us - will add even more pressure on the government to scrap their idea. Please sign the petition now.

What are companies like Serco and G4S spending
our public money on? Right now, none of us have the right to know.
Because private companies hired by the government aren’t covered by transparency
laws. [1]

But this could change. The government’s “considering”
extending Freedom of Information laws to cover private companies. [2]
It’ll mean we can finally see what’s going on behind closed doors - in
privatised NHS services, failing prisons and anything else that’s been flogged
to the highest bidder.

The idea’s been leaked in the press. And
politicians will be seeing what reaction it gets. A huge petition now,
signed by hundreds of thousands of 38 Degrees members, will leave them in no
doubt: the public deserves to know what anyone who spends public money
is up to.

Please sign the petition to David Cameron now - it only
takes ten seconds now to add your name:

Because of creeping privatisation in our NHS, companies like Serco
and G4S are responsible for the care of the elderly and most vulnerable in our
society - they need to answer to us.

38 Degrees members
have fought hard for the right to know what our politicians are up to,
what they’re spending our money on and who they’re dealing with behind the
scenes. Because of us, it looks like the government’s already
back-pedalling on their plans to close down bits of Freedom of
Information. [3]

People-power has no bounds. The
government’s change of heart is down to us - so now let’s set the bar
higher. [4]

Tell the government to give us access to
what companies are doing with public money. Please add your name to the petition
now:

“Freedom of Information is an essential part of democracy, supporting the
ability to hold the people who spend public money to account.

With the government wanting the private sector to take a greater and
greater role in this, most recently using LEPs (formed primarily of businesses)
to spearhead devolution, the need for such companies to be transparent and
accountable has never been stronger.

Please extend the Freedom of Information Act and Environmental Impact
Regulations to those parts of private companies that are accepting public money
and on the same basis to any significant sub-contractors.”